Fresh out of high school and without a clue of what to do with your life, you are immediately thrown into a startling, chaotic world called college.

Coming from a student who has changed her major four or five times in the past three years, four years sounds daunting to the average student, especially one who isn’t exactly sure what her career may be.

You have the biology major whose secret passion is writing, but she wants a stable and steady income for her family in the future and decides to take the long road with the pre-med track. There’s the aspiring architect who cannot pass a math class to save his life and is forced to give up his dream of constructing the next Eiffel Tower. And of course there’s the lazy genius, who scores As on all of his exams without taking one look at his calculus textbook but fails to register for his classes and doesn’t get into the final core class he needs to graduate on time.

No matter the circumstances, there is always that question that resurfaces when you least expect it: are four years really enough?

There are multiple factors affecting how your time in college will pan out: how many credits you need to graduate, what pre-requisites you need to take in order to get into graduate school and how many classes transferred over from high school or community college. It seems as though you need to know exactly what you’re going to do before you do it. Not all students can or want to begin their first real time as adults making a map of their future; they want the freedom to explore.

The New York Times also addresses this discontentment: “College officials also recognize that deciding on a major can be overwhelming, especially when coupled with the fear that a wrong choice will result in added semesters and tuition. ‘Students no longer have the luxury of stumbling into a major or making mistakes,’ says Neeta P. Fogg, a research professor at Drexel University’s Center for Labor Markets and Policy.”

So what, if anything, should we do about this predicament?

I interviewed two very different CU students, and this is what they said.

Mike Molinari, a senior (and soon-to-be super senior) history and Italian major, thinks that four or five years is a standard amount of time for a student to spend in college.

Did you know exactly what you wanted to do after you left high school?

Yes, I knew I wanted to join the military.

Is the reason why you chose to participate in the military? 

I wanted to join, because I knew becoming an officer would open up a lot of different options for me in the future. Plus, just serving my country is one of the main reasons I did it, and I just didn’t want some boring old office job. I wanted something where I could actually make a difference.

Do you think that you needed this four years of schooling to learn that?

Yes, definitely, if not more. Over the summer we have training in addition to the four years, and I still don’t think a lot of people get enough experience with what we are going into actually serving.

Do you think you would have rather gone to a more military-based school?

No, I thought about going to an academy, but I didn’t, because I wanted the college experience as well as being able to serve. I’m glad I didn’t do that.

Do you feel as though being at school for an extra year disadvantages you?

Having an extra year? I don’t think it does at all. If anything, it helps me, because I may be able to pick up another major, learn a lot more, and that is only going towards my creditability for the future.

(Courtesy Mike Molinari)

Meghan Wilmesher, a junior integrative physiology major, sat down with me for a couple of minutes to discuss her views on the academic system. She is currently in the process of getting her prerequisites for medical school or physical therapy school.

Did you know exactly what you wanted to do after you left high school?

No.

What is your opinion on the academic system right now?

I think the academic system right now doesn’t support maybe a good education. I came in as a freshman — undeclared — and I didn’t figure out until the end of my freshman year what I wanted to do. Because of that, there was really no buffer for me to decide what I wanted and I ended up actually being a year behind in class. So, if I had come in and decided what major I was in, I would be in my actual junior year, but right now I am at my sophomore year in my major.

What experience did you have that made you decide what you wanted to do as a career?

When I was just looking at the majors that the school offered, I knew I had always kind of liked science, and a really good friend of mine was studying i-phy. I ended up looking into his major a little bit more and found out I really liked what upper division classes the school had to offer and the career choices.

Will you be graduating on time?

No.

Explain how this disadvantages you and what you want to do with your future?

I mean, obviously cost is a big one. I don’t have student loans out, but it is still going to cost me probably 30,000-40,000 extra dollars to graduate and get the same degree as anyone else. As well as just time, I’ll be older when I go to grad school, and I’ll get a later start jumping into things.

Is there a way to change that?

Yeah, I think that there should be more leniency on the starting majors and coming in. Maybe you could get one semester or two to try out that nobody is allowed to declare until they’ve been in school for a semester. Also, maybe not so many weed out classes or core requirements. I just feel as though maybe those took up my freshmen year, and if I would have jumped in and did the other recommended classes and I would have known.

(Courtesy Kelsey Samuels)

Contact CU Independent Copy Editor Kelsey Samuels at Kelsey.samuels@colorado.edu.